Warbird Information Exchange

While this is not quite warbird news, it's awful close...besides, if I put in any other section, few will see it.

Textron, which owns Cessna and Bell will buy Beech for $1.4 billion.
Beech is the new entity that survived from the Hawker bizjet collapse. Beech said they were going back to their roots of selling GA aircraft, namely King Airs with a few Barons and Bonanzas on the side, along with the T-6 turboprop trainer for the military and foreign sales.

The acquisition would give Cessna the leading twin turboprop aircraft in GA...a market that Cessna hasn't been in since the 80s when they quit making the 406, 441 and 425. Likewise, Cessna doesn't have a light twin so the Baron could be welcome. And Cessna doesn't have a Bonanza class aircraft in its lineup, it no longer makes the 210 and I'm not sure if you could put the Columbia high performance single in the Bonanza class. I doubt if the feds would care conflict of interest-wise. If you remember in the 60s, Rockwell had to sell the Jet Commander design because it already offered the Sabreliner (though the two were hardly competitors...being different classes of bizjets).

I don't think we'll have to start calling the King Air a Cessna, though I wouldn't be shocked to see some consolidation of the firm's various Wichita plants.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Hard to say, Boeing made it redily apparent that after the merger with MDC and Rockwell they discouraged the use of 'Boeing DC-3' or Boeing B-25' and nowhere in their historical naratives do they refer to anything other than Boeing original designs as a 'Boeing Belchfire....they are refered to as a DOUGLAS or North American Belchfire'
I'll bet there will be layoffs with the intermeshing of the companies.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

I agree, the Beech name is safe on the Bonanza and King Air.
But they'd be silly not to merge the admin functions of both firms considering they're in the same business in the same town.

_________________
Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

I don't understand how beech still sells new Barons when good used B58s can be had for the mid 200s and a new one costs over 1 million.

The same way Cessna is asking $275-300K for a new Cessna 172

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

People buy new cars all the time more or less the same thing. Besides, new airplanes are likely to have the neat glass cockpits.
Some people may not trust a 20-40 year old airplane...either as a potential money pit or (less likely, but I'm sure some people thing this way...) safety.

If you buy a used car the worse it can do is strand you by the side of the road or fail to start. With an airplane.....

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Dunno. If used cars were subject to 100 hour and annual inspections with decent logs....

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

I know a guy who bought a new Baron recently. He owns a big company, in a small town. He likes to fly, and mainly uses it to fly out to his ranch from the small local airport near his plant. If he wants to go somewhere faster, or further away, he rings up his pilot and tells him to warm up the CJ3, which is down the road aways at a bigger airport.

To him, reliability and peace of mind is everything - the money is nothing. A 20 yr old Baron may be 20% (or less) of the cost of a new one, but you can be assured that nearly every one that is on the market has some sort of deferred maintenance issues, and probably a few logbook entries where the only tool used was a pencil.

You ain't just whistlin' dixie.